At the last Olympic Games in Paris (2024), for the first time ever, the number of male and female athletes competing under the Olympic rings was equal. In Milan, men still make up the majority (53%), but it’s still the most balanced ratio in the history of the Winter Olympics.
Women will now have the chance to compete in the luge doubles and ski jumping on the large hill. Both events have only a short history, with world championship medals awarded for the first time after the Covid pandemic.
However, thanks to the emphasis on equal opportunities, these events will make their Olympic debut after just a few years. On the other hand, male ski jumpers will lose the traditional four-member team event, which will be replaced by so-called super teams, consisting of just two athletes.
The women’s cross-country skiing marathon will also make its Olympic debut. This endurance event is a great example of how quickly women are catching up to men in the sport. Until the late 1980s, the longest women’s race was 20 km, then it increased to 30 km until 2023, and last year, Sweden’s Frida Karlsson claimed the first ever women’s world title in the 50 km race.
The Games program is also being shaped by the growing effort to create events where men and women can compete together in mixed teams.
For the first time, there will be a mixed doubles skeleton event, where the combined times of both athletes will determine the result. Not all mixed events have caught on, though. The team slalom event, where two men and two women raced against each other, has been dropped after just two editions.
The traditional alpine combined, a test of all-around skiing ability that required athletes to tackle both downhill and slalom, is also a thing of the past. It has been missing from the World Cup calendar for two years, is not planned for next season, and now remains only at the World Championships. At the Olympics, it will now be a pairs event (separate for men and women), with each discipline handled by a specialist.
For the American women’s team, this could mean a dream pairing. If Lindsey Vonn’s knee holds up, she is planning to team up with Mikaela Shiffrin. This event is currently on a trial basis, and a decision on its future will be made by April this year.
What is Ski Mountaineering?
There are also changes coming to moguls (for both men and women), which until now have been individual events at the Games. Now, two athletes will race in parallel. However, crossing the finish line first doesn’t guarantee victory. The key factors remain technique over the bumps, the difficulty of jumps, and time, with each element making up just one fifth of the total score.
The only brand-new sport in the Games program is, paradoxically, the oldest skiing discipline of all. Ski mountaineering originally began as training for soldiers operating in the mountains and developed as a sport in the Alps at the end of the 19th century. Today’s athletes jokingly say they practice alpine skiing the way it was done before ski lifts existed.
Traditional races last about two hours and feature a series of ascents and descents, but the Olympic program will feature a sprint. The 610-meter race with a 70-meter elevation gain will be contested by men and women, and there will also be mixed relays on a course twice as long with double the elevation. The competition consists of several rounds, each lasting about three minutes, which is better suited for TV broadcasts.
Races will start in groups, and each round includes both climbing and descending. The climb has three phases: first, athletes ascend on skis with special climbing skins, then they remove their skis, attach them to their backpack, and run up a set of stairs in their boots, before putting their skis back on to reach the highest point of the course. After that, they remove the skins and race down to the finish.
The Olympic competitions will take place in Bormio on the legendary Stelvio slope from February 19th.
Last Nordic combined?
This year may be the last time the world’s best Nordic combined athletes compete at the Olympics, even though the sport has been part of the Games since their inception in 1924.
According to the International Olympic Committee, the future of the sport is in serious doubt. They point out that it had by far the lowest viewership at the last three Games.
Another argument is that athletes from just four countries have won the last 27 Olympic medals in the sport. Nordic combined also remains the only Olympic sport without female participation, which recently led to protests from the athletes themselves.
The IOC has tasked the sport’s representatives with expanding it to more countries and attracting a wider audience. All signs suggest the IOC is looking to remove Nordic combined from the Olympic program.